What hard work a garden requires! Pruning, clipping and shaping are all necessary in order to grow flowers and have the end result of beauty. It is a necessary discipline. Discipline isn’t a word most people like, but how necessary it is in order to grow in our Christian lives! “We need to develop a love for discipline. How else will we become a Paul, a David, a Hannah, a Mary, a woman after God’s Own heart? We must pray for a greater discipline to pray, to read God’s Word, to get a heart for peace and purity.” Elizabeth George’s study has given us so many “yes, but how?” answers this month! This post is a synopsis of lesson three in her book.

Every day when we get up we have so many things calling for our attention. What do we give attention to? David answers that with this passage: Psalm 5:1-3 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. David’s solution is that we must have time with the Lord.

What does it require?

1. Daily time – The tip of the iceberg is only 1/7 of the iceberg. The greater part of it is out of sight where people do not see. Your public life is just the tip of the iceberg. People look at you after you’ve spent your time with the Lord, alone, praying, giving Him your life (this is the 6/7 that they don’t see!); they look at what they do see of your life and they say, “Where does she get that? How come she doesn’t faint? How come she always seems to make the right decisions?” It’s because of what they don’t see of your life which is that time spent out of sight beneath the surface with the Lord. “Talent develops itself in secret. What kind of talent? The talent of prayer. The talent of faith. The talent of meditation. The talent of seeing the unseen. It’s all developed in prayer; out of sight in solitude.”
3. Where is it we’re going to get this time? We have to learn to say “no.” You have to say “no” to something in order to say “yes” to something else. We must say no, not only to things that are wrong and sinful, but to things that are pleasant, profitable and good, if it would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work. Elizabeth said when she considers this statement she always things of …sleep! Sleep is profitable, pleasant and good! But if we could just say no to a little sleep so we could take care of our grand duties and our chief work.

I’m busy Lord, surely you can see

a thousand things that wait for me.

The dishes still lie in the sink

I cannot stop to pray or think!

Lord, I know You understand,

you gave these children to my hand.

And now they cry and need me so

Lord, You understand, I better go.

Now I’ve got them all to sleep,

I better dust and mop and sweep,

I must thaw out the meat for stew,

and the ironing’s long overdue.

And kindly my Lord answered me,

“Why do you from my presence flee?

I have so much for you today.

My child, I want to hear you pray.

I love you, child. I want you here,

to rest, to listen, to shed a tear.

For what if Paul had stopped to say,

‘Lord, I’m too busy to write letters today!’

No, my child, I’m what you need.

Through household duties you can speed

But when you’re through there’s emptiness

if this quiet time you miss.”

Oh, thank you, Lord, for showing me

how much I need to wait on Thee.

For what’s an undone dish or two

compared to spending time with you?

—Nancy Stitzel

We cannot be too busy to meet with the Lord and pray.

…Continued on tomorrow’s post.

Perhaps, like you, we had Christmas dinner leftovers for Sunday dinner yesterday. We chose other foods for Saturday’s meals, moving around the leftovers in the fridge like mice over well-aged cheese. Occasionally I saw someone slipping a little piece of the strawberry pretzel salad, or a bite of chicken, but we saved the rest for our Sunday dinner. You know what? It was as yummy as it was on Christmas Day! I did add some fresh baked biscuits to the meal, but everything else was warmed over from Friday.

We used the good Christmas dishes, linen napkins and lit the candles. No reason not to embellish leftovers! It’s not the food, it’s the company that makes it worth your while to make each meal special! We may not have had “company,” but I’m referring to those you’re serving. Family is the most dear to us, and therefore deserve the best we can do. If that means Corelle and pretty paper napkins, then great! It’s special to share the meal together at the table – not spread all over the living room like so many ants at a picnic. Coming together as a family provides time to talk, laugh, and create memories.

One night during the Christmas weekend we got to talking about some of the funny memories that have been created around our table. At one point one of the girls had to excuse themselves because she took a drink at the wrong moment…right when something funny was shared. She left lest she “share” her sip of water clear across the table!

We’ve had a great Christmas together. We celebrated our Lord’s birth and rejoiced in the Gift of God’s Son. We shared His love with others when we passed out goodie bags at the fire department and the ICU waiting areas at our local hospital. Then, as the picture above states, we shared some really sweet family times – memories to tuck away in our hearts.

What special memories did your family create this Christmas?

Can you imagine what this earth would be like if Christ had not come? What would it be like to live never having a Savior be born to die for our sins?

• We would have no hope in death.
• We would have no purpose for today.
• We would have nothing that could give lasting peace.
• There would be no solution to our problems.
• The world would be filled only with sin, sadness, and suffering.
• There would be no validity in the Bible.
• There would be no reason to live.

Oh, but 2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. He did come down! I heard this statement recently, “Almighty God did not stay in heaven to say, ‘I love you’ from a distance, but He came to earth to draw near to us so He could be touchable and knowable, and put His arms around us and not just say ‘I love you’ in words, but in deed and in action .” How thankful I am for His touch in my life! How wonderful to know Him through His Word, telling us what Jesus did for us!

Do you know Him personally, Friend? If you don’t, I urge you to receive Him as your Savior. He came for you! If you are His child, let me ask you this – do you live daily in the reality of the fact that He did indeed come? Or do you live your life in such a way that you ignore His presence in your life?

I have a friend that at one time lived for God; she worked for a couple of different Christian ministries. She had an unsaved brother that began to tell her she could make far more in the secular world and she listened. Soon she was working for a corporation in Australia. She did indeed make more money, but she also began drifting from the Lord, not acknowledging the fact that He was the Giver of all that she was enjoying. I’m not suggesting that you have to work for a Christian ministry to live for God, but I am saying that we have to each find out what God wants us to do and then get after it and stay after it! In a recent Christmas card I received from this friend I read of her trip to spend two weeks this year in Paris to attend a photography class. While there’s nothing sinful in attending a class like this in Europe, there was again the absence of anything to do with the Lord in her letter. She went here, did this and that, she has moved again, changed jobs again and traveled again…on her own. Her life is void of fulfillment – I don’t care how many numbers are in her salary. Proverbs 11:4 says “Riches profit not…” Proverbs 15:16 “Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.”

A life without Christ in every part of it is living as though He never came. Is your life acknowledging the preciousness of God’s gift of Christ to us? Christmas is a needed reminder that Jesus came to give us life…a life worth living 365 days a year!

East Tennessee experienced a snowfall this weekend – deeper than any we’ve seen in the nine years we’ve lived here – about 6-7 inches. The snow came on Friday evening, right around 5:00, when workers were leaving their jobs. The highways were tangled up with traffic like Christmas lights in a box. We prayed for the safety of those trying to make their way home in the winter storm. For those of us that were already home when the snow came, it was beautiful.

We ended up with no power for most of Friday evening. We played games by candlelight at the kitchen table, sang our favorite Christmas carols accompanied by Allison’s guitar, and just had a restful evening together. We had the privilege of hosting a stranded traveler – the mom of a friend of our daughter’s who couldn’t make it to her house. It was a privilege to be a blessing to one who had been out in the cold and snow for four hours.

Because of the snowy roads we were unable to have church services yesterday. The church parking lot was not plowed and difficult to navigate, and many of our church members were still without power. The time here at home was a sweet time. Allison made a delicious breakfast for us consisting of blueberry pancakes and bacon. We seldom ever eat breakfast together on Sunday morning, so this was a special treat, followed by a time together in God’s Word.

For lunch I served a comforting Baked Potato Soup. ** It’s a Cooking Light recipe, but you’d never know it! It’s rich and creamy and tastes quite indulgent. We also enjoyed a cheese ball, given to us as a Christmas gift by a neighbor. It was presented on a darling little Santa plate accompanied by a “gift box” spreader. What a thoughtful (and delicious) gift!

Dessert was an assortment of Christmas goodies…Raspberry shortbreads, Oreo Truffles, Mint Cookies, White Bark, Aurey Nut Balls and Soda Cracker Candy. No shortage of sugar in us!

What was your weekend weather like and what special times did it afford you and your family?

Oh, Happy Winter – it’s official today!

**Reduce the amount of flour added to the soup to 1/3 Cup.